Science
Humans on earth are the equivalent of ants on a football, restricted in their perception of the brilliance of the cosmos that surrounds them. However unlike ants, humanity can marvel the mysteries of the universe without stepping out of its backyard!
It's been nearly 400 years since Galileo observed the heavens through the first telescope. Four centuries later, the Hubble Space Telescope with its cutting-edge technology, continues to probe the corners of the universe trying to answer the questions that have eluded mankind for eons.
We at Cerebrus Constipatus are not yet enlightened enough to answer the queries of the ages, though we can help you marvel the genius of the cosmos through our mammoth eye in the sky!
Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038-4039
Image Courtesy of HubbleSite
With chaos, comes order. The Antennae galaxies which began interacting about 200 to 300 million years ago are one the closest and youngest examples of a pair of colliding galaxies. The galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms" extending far out from their cores.
The two orange blobs distinctive in the image are the cores of the original galaxies, and comprise mainly of old stars criss-crossed by filaments of dust, which appears brown in the image. The galaxies are dotted with brilliant blue star-forming regions surrounded by glowing hydrogen gas, appearing in the image in pink.
The image is a trailer of what is to come when our own Milkyway collides with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy in several billion years.
Lampreys or lamprey eel are creatures right out of sci-fi horror movies! They’re parasitic marine animals with a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. The lampreys fall off the host fish after they’re appetite is satisfied or if the host fish dies. A single lamprey can kill 40 pounds of fish within its 18 month life as an adult.
Lampreys resemble eel with their slender sleek bodies, they're scale less and can be anywhere between 5 to 40 inches in length. They have two large eyes, no fins, one giant nostril on the top of their heads and seven gills on either side of their bodies.
Read more...…Fish in the World
The Stonefish or Synanceia found on the coastal regions of the Indo-Pacific oceans is the deadliest fish in the world. Capable of killing a human within two hours of contact, poison is a backup defense mechanism for the stonefish, camouflage being the first. This invariably makes it even more deadly to humans as it’s almost impossible to differentiate from its surroundings, which also gives it its signature name.
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This one’s probably going to give you more than a few nightmares, the Giant Isopod or Bathynomus Giganteus, is the biggest of the nine species of isopods and can grow up to 14.5 inches in length. Just imagine a giant head louse and you wouldn’t be too far off.
